


It's Too Late For That Now

by Cryptonite_00



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, I love Fiona and Alistair and I want them to reconnect, One-Shot, Other, but I also really like them missing the chance, but not really, idk At All tbh, psuedo-angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 10:03:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8886718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptonite_00/pseuds/Cryptonite_00
Summary: There's a woman at his joining, and Alistair grows increasingly curious about who she is.





	

There’s a woman at his joining, an elf, standing between Commander Duncan and Riordan, that Warden-Lieutenant from somewhere he’s forgotten already in Orlais. She’s different, somehow, than the others walking around the encampment, and the fact that she’s wearing Circle robes (First-Enchanter ones, at that), instead of the proud blue and silver that was commonplace among the order, had only a little bit to do with it, surprisingly. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn’t surrounded by scary men with fiery swords etched into their breastplates that stood out to him.

He doesn’t remember seeing her before he and the other recruits went out to collect the vials of blood (which, still, he doesn’t understand the purpose of), under the watchful eye of the actual Warden sent with them, but she’s there when the four of them return, blood intact. 

While the others go and find entertainment around the camp for whatever time is allowed to them, he doesn’t. At least, not immediately. He handed over the messy vials to the supervisor, and barely heard the others say something about seeing him later, his eyes blankly fixated on the woman the entire time, and his face set in deep thought; he stayed still, leaning the slightest bit on a tree near the entrance.

  He didn’t know her from anywhere, and yet he did, somehow. For a moment, he thinks it’s like the times King Maric came to visit Eamon and Teagan, but he puts that out of his mind almost immediately, because it’s so ridiculous, especially since he knew for a fact that Arl Eamon wouldn’t lie to him about whoever he was related to. He’s just the bastard of some starstruck maid and a lonely King—nothing more complex than that. 

She’s almost comically small, especially between the two wardens she’s so engrossed in conversation with (maker, from where he’s standing, he could swear she doesn’t even reach their biceps) her black hair’s been cut short, and her brown cheeks had the slightest hint of since-dried tear-tracks that were abruptly wiped at; it crosses his mind, for some seconds, to ask someone who she is, but since he doesn’t particularly wish to interrupt. He could swear he’s seen her in some sort of dream before, but, that’s absolutely ludicrous, so he doesn’t think about it again, and goes and plays with the mabari (and gets glared at by the Kennel-Master) for the rest of the hour, until he’s retrieved.   

The stone alter-place that the recruits were taken to gives him chills down his spine, purely because it’s almost everything there points to some sort of malefic place for forest witches, especially considering the ambiguous stains on the cold stone ground that he had a suspicion were blood. (Plus, the whole atmosphere of ‘secret Ritual done under moonlight’ wasn’t all that redeeming). Regardless, it’s the location that people he trusted chose, so it really couldn't be all that bad. 

The woman was still there, but she wasn’t near the pedestal like the three actual wardens, who dressed the part and everything. She placed a large goblet on the surface quickly, before she turned around and gave the senior Wardens the most threatening glare that Alistair had ever seen, and walked away after she’d sufficiently put fear deep into their hearts. 

The cup is brought to his lips with shaking hands, which still themselves after he sees that woman in the distance; she’s looking something like worried (or, perhaps, he hopes she’s worried), and he actually manages to make eye contact with her, just before he chokes on the dark mixture of substances he’s not entirely sure he wants to know, and falls to the ground.  
When he wakes up, he’s almost disappointed that she’s not there, and he looks around, in a way that he thinks is inconspicuous. She’s not in his immediate vicinity, but he catches a glimpse of her face, before it turns away from him. The woman’s gone before he can do anything about it, and he turns back to see Duncan and Riordan waving in the exit’s direction, before abruptly stopping to look at him. 

Eventually, after four days, he wills himself to ask Duncan—mostly because he’s absolutely sure that he’ll go ridiculously mad if he doesn’t know. He says it in the most casual way he can, which even still is undercut with some form of pleading desperation.

“Do you, by any sort of chance, know who that woman was? At the joining, in the robes, with the cup—you know.” 

The answer is given only after an entirely too long pause, durning which Duncan practically turned to stone. It’s delivered, eventually, with a sadly pitiful face, and the tone almost sounds like he’s forcing the words out, and fighting to keep a different sentence at bay.  

“Fiona, she is…a friend, and one of the most honourable amongst us. You should do well to remember that.” 

He accepts the answer with a nod, and he doesn’t prod for anything further. 

More than a decade later, when the Crown is approached to help the Free Mages, he sits quietly in his throne, letting Anora do the talking. He’d thought he had grown out of the old habit, especially after he started showing actual interest in ruling, but he couldn’t help but stay quiet, still trying to place why he was so fixated; he doesn’t mention anything about the joining or their previous non-interaction, and he tells himself it’s because he is to keep the Wardens’ secrets just that. The only speaking he does during the entire interaction is messy at best, what with him unceremoniously blurting out approval for helping them, looking at the Queen with a pleading look to get her to agree with him.

  The former Grand Enchanter bows after issuing her most gracious thanks, and walks out of his reach yet again.


End file.
